What could BP buy with the money lost during the oil spill?

I think it is probably fair to assume that BP have had a really unpleasant time of it over the past few weeks. Not as unpleasant as a bunch of fish, some pelicans and Spongebob Squarepants, granted.

Whilst they've squirted toxic gloop in the sea like a seaside gathering of the diarrhoea association, they've been acutely aware of the fact that, as each second went by, they were wanking coins into a void and they weren't likely to see them again for a good while.

But just how much money have they lost? Well, according to VisualEconomics, it's in the region of $100,000,000,000.

Obviously, that's a lot of noughts... but after you pass four or five noughts, it is difficult to comprehend just how much money we're dealing with.

Good thing VisualEconomics have spelled it out to us with a bunch of statistics that can be processed by idiots like me and you. That amount of money could buy an iPad for every college student in America... or an ice-cream sandwich for absolutely everyone on Earth. It could keep Bitterwallet editors in prostitutes for roughly a fortnight.

Anyway, click here to see the list of things you could buy with all that money. Some are silly and some are quite serious.

I can't believe a website that apparently specialises in economics could actually be so retarded...
BP aren't the ones that have lost $100 billion, their shareholders are. Pretty simple really. The share price of a company doesn't affect the business's finances in any way. BP never had this $100 billion in the first place so listing what BP could buy with it is pointless and akin to listing what anyone could do with money they never had.
Also it's pretty shocking that VisualEconomics include things BP could buy like clean water, new homes for Katrina victims etc as if they're trying to make them seem like BP's responsibilities to provide. They really aren't.
What a piss poor site :|

Tristan seems to be under the delusion that a companies and its shareholders are serperate entities. Whilst technically true, ethically, logically, morally and in reality that is not the case. The shareholders are BP, they own BP. So if they lose money, BP loses money, because they are BP.
This delusion that the media promotes that shareholders are somehow not responsible for the companies they own, allows the perverse moral hazard behaviour of companies/people to steal billions from pensions, make billions and millions for the owners, and then declare bankruptcy. Meanign the owners who have made billions are not liable for any of the millions of pensions lost.
Wake up from this lie. Owners are the company, only in a perverse universe can people make money from their businesses and then not be liable for it when it makes losses. We live in a perverse economic times.